2018 Trans BC Enduro Stage Race — Intro & Bike Check

Through a combination of peer pressure and the strange need for some personal verification that I have not somehow managed to get faster as I get older, I decided to enter the Trans BC race, which starts in a couple days.

For those unfamiliar, the Trans BC is a six-day Enduro stage race that, as the name implies, is held in British Columbia. The exact locations change every year, but this year’s race takes place in Rossland, Castlegar, and Nelson.

Those areas, in my ever-so-humble opinion, have some of the best trails in North America. In the winter, they make up the southern extent of the infamous Powder Highway. In the summer, they’re home to some of the best steep, rooty, rocky, loamy singletrack I’ve ever ridden. And the best part? Those towns aren’t really near… anything. So there aren’t a lot of people around.

But back to the race: it’s going to hurt me.

The courses vary a bit from day to day, but I’m counting on 4,000-5,000 feet of climbing every day over 20-25 miles. In metric, that translates to approximately a lot.

To train for this race, I’ve adopted a strict regimen of riding a lot and drinking slightly less beer. I also had some broccoli with dinner last night. And, naively I’m sure, I think I’m more or less ready. Or maybe it’s just that the race is a couple days away and I’m resigned to the fact that I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

From time to time here at Blister, we get asked about the gear we personally use. Sure, we review all kinds of cool stuff, but the reality is that I tend to rotate through review bikes somewhat frequently so a lot of times I don’t really have a “personal” bike that I’d call mine; I just ride whatever I’m reviewing at the moment. And for the most part, I’m ok with that, because most of the bikes we review are generally pretty good.

But for this race, I wanted to (1) get a bike that would work well for this event, and (2) set it up exactly how I wanted for this particular race. And because it’s a week-long event, there’s a bunch of other gear that’s also semi-critical, besides just the frame. So while my bike setup and gear selection is put together with an eye on this race, the end result was that this is also the stuff that I personally think is the best I’ve come across, at least in the context of a long-ass Enduro race like the Trans BC.

I’ll be saying more after the race about the choices I made and the gear I picked. And since I’ll have the benefit of hindsight, I’ll also talk a bit about what worked, what didn’t, what I’d do differently, and whether I saw any other racers that had some super slick setup that I wish I’d thought of.

But leading up to the race, here’s my setup — we’ll call this a bike check.

Me: 5’9”, 150-ish lbs, not quite as old as my gray hair would suggest.

Your setup looked ideal to me, except for that neck of the woods, and that many days in a row, I might have gone with a 30t chainring. And maybe the big rotor out back, too, just for more modulation (though not sure the Slash would accept that).